yardbirdrc
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2011
- Messages
- 160
This is more a story of a time when drugs made a sudden an unexpected reappearance in my life than it is a specific or detailed account of one particular drug, although the former does contain a few of the latter.
Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been a little over a year since I last ate acid. I've been asking myself for a while why that might be. There are several factors, both practical and abstract. For one, there were the anxiety issues that I had written about in my most recent LSD report submitted to these archives. Now, I've not really suffered these effects in daily life for some time, but the notion still lingered that playing with my brain chemistry could of course throw me into some kind of panic attack - which are no fun, in case you were wondering. After I wrote that last report, I did attempt 2 further psychedelic ventures. The first was on mescaline, and it was not exactly a smooth journey. You can read about it in my report Lakedown. The second was on 2C-B, and was kind of a disaster that involved gobbling a lot of Ativan in an Aviary. I didn't write that one up.
Beyond that, I've not really felt the need. Psychedelics were at one point a hugely important thing for me, and extremely helpful during some very formative times. But for the most part these days I've been largely... formed. It's been a while since I really had anything I wanted to work out about myself or about the world. I've been working, independent, and generally content smoking my daily dose of good ass weed when I got home. But lately things have been changing. I have become dissatisfied with my career and living situation, and for the first time in about 6 years I'm a single man. I've been putting things in motion to change a lot of this, but it's certainly fair to say that once again I am in uncertain waters and in need of some direction. Enter LSD.
It's also important to note that an impending drug test was keeping me from altering my consciousness in the usual ways. Honestly, it's hard for me to go day to day sober. That's not something I'm ashamed to admit. I love marijuana like a family member, I don't plan on ever parting ways with it, and I see no harm in ingesting it in the evenings ritualistically. But the lack of it had pushed me to do some weird things, like sip sizzurp - a lifelong dream of my inner gangster fulfilled, and my opiate cherry popped in one fell swoop. In short, lately I've been taking weird drugs and doing weird things to keep my sanity. These are some stories about that. I'm sure I'll be posting a few more isolated trip reports over the next several months, this seems to be a time in my life conducive to drug-taking. I've already got a couple other experiences beyond those here that I can't really figure out how to write up.
1 Krishna, 2 Krishna, Red Krishna, Blue Krishna
Date: September 14, 2013
Time: 12:00PM - 6:00PM
Drug: LSD
Dose: 1/2 Tab (Mayan Calendar)
Sam and Will had been bugging me all summer to take acid with them. They had never done it before, although they both had experience with mushrooms and I had smoked DMT with Will a couple of times. Being the resident shaman in this concrete jungle, naturally they came to me. I was apprehensive obviously, given that my previous 2 forays were awfully harrowing experiences. But the last time I did LSD I was fine, and enjoyed myself in fact, so I thought that maybe LSD would be a good decision. Thankfully I was correct. It was September before we had a definitive plan: the festival of colors. It was a celebration of the Hindu holiday Holi taking place at a Hare Krishna temple in West Virginia. During this festival it was custom to liberally throw colored, perfumed chalk powder at anybody and everybody you saw. This seemed like an exceptional opportunity.
A week before on a trip to visit some friends in Astoria, Kyle had eaten one of my Mayan Calendars to diminished effect. Degradation due to being dragged around to various music festivals seemed a likely culprit. This complicated matters. In my possession were a handful of Dalai Lamas and Mayan Calendars, some Alex Greys and some shit I had gotten several years ago on the street that were simply referred to as "reds". Kyle also had some Mayans and Dalais. It was impossible to tell which had degraded and to what extent, although we knew that Kyle's were still regulation strength.
Kyle dropped 1.5 of his Mayans and I ate the larger half of the halved panel, figuring I would take it easy this time. Will, Sam and Meg all started with an Alex Grey. By the time we arrived at the festival, Kyle and I were getting first alerts but everybody else was pretty underwhelmed. Rats. At T+1:00 I gave Will another Grey at his request and we headed into the temple grounds where people were throwing dye and music was being played. This was pretty enjoyable for about a half hour, and I was definitely feeling the 'cid, although at this point I began contemplating a redose. We left this area rather quickly, which was quite a deviation from the plan. The thing about Hare Krishnas, as it turns out, is that they fucking love Krishna. Like way, way too much. The tone of the music was extremely preachy and corny, I felt like I was at a Christian rock festival but everybody had switched out the Jesus references for Krishna and Rama references. Weird vibes, man. Weird vibes.
We returned to a pond near where we entered. The pond had 2 pavillions leading out to the water, and a makeshift ghat. The fact that we were in West Virginia rather than West Varanasi was constantly apparent, and very bizarre. As we watched a lone swan twiddle its toes around the pond, we discussed the fact that nobody was feeling anything besides Kyle and myself. I had brought a 100mg pill of mescaline hydrochloride that I had extracted in case someone felt like mixing a cocktail - Meg decided that she would take this in order to facilitate things. Sam and Will each ate a Dalai Lama, hoping to push the acid into legitimate territory. Due to taking care of them, I did not redose at this point.
We wandered over to a large chitzy fibreglass Radha Krishna - which is essentially two statues representing the unity of the Masculine and Feminine aspects of God. I was feeling very serene and contemplative, Kyle and I talked for a while by ourselves about friendship and how important it was to have a supportive group of people to trust and fall back on. Around this time Will began to trip extremely hard. I guess those Alex Greys weren't totally duds, because he disappeard for a while, and reappeared claiming that he had mistook the plastic chairs on the ghat in the distance for sheep, and that he had spent some time by himself trying to figure out why a shepherd had shown up. He had also talked to the swan. He had the most ridiculous grin plastered on his face, and I knew at that point that I had not failed in my mission to usher Sam and Will into the world of LSD.
We wandered up a hill to a secluded area and everybody but Will smoked some Girl Scout Cookies. I hadn't smoked pot in about a week and a half in preparation for a drug test, but I needed to kick things into high gear and I still had about 2 weeks until the test. At this point my trip ramped up to something worthwhile. It hit Sam here too. We descended from the hill and I began walking among peacocks. I tried to mimic them as best I could, to walk like them and think like them so that we may communicate on some level. This was a family event, and at this point we were very obviously on drugs. I was strutting around the peacock enclosure and everybody was taking turns comparing realities with and without sunglasses. I had hit that point where I was comfortable being myself and projecting my true identity to strangers. I'm the guy who walks with the peacocks, and I didn't care who knew.
We smoked cigarettes and sprawled out on the ghat. Some kids were nearby, and their parents were trying to usher them away from us. I guess we looked dangeorus. "Come on Joe, it's time to go!" I looked up and Joe was staring at me. "Is your name Joe?" I asked. He stared at me, unbliking and nodded. "My name is Joe, too", I said. He didn't seem to know how to respond, and he just kind of stared at me with a look of confusion and almost disgust. I had a really weird moment where I imagined that he would remember that moment, and perhaps someday become me. Will, sensing the negative perception the parents had of us, began to feel uncomfortable. He announced that he was overwhelmed, and we began to make our way back towards the woods in order to handle the situation. During the walk there he expressed a lot of paranoia about all the people around us and how they were perceiving us, and Kyle and I tried to comfort him by assuring him that people often hit rough patches on acid, but that it would pass shortly. When we reached the hill, Will request a Lorazepam and we simply laid there for a bit while he got his bearings. He thought that there were people around us in the woods, watching and listening. He also kept thinking there were 6 of us in the group, despite there only being five of us. After he asked this several times, Sam finally convinced him by pointing out that only 5 people could fit in her car. Eventually he recovered from this, and we began to talk very candidly about his parents' recent divorce, and several other things that he normally would not be so open about. Due largely to the time we spent on this hill, I am now a much closer friend with both Will and Sam. I could definitely see him figuring some things out that put us on a similar plane of perspective where we had previously not really overlapped, even after the experience.
We eventually left the hill as the sun was setting and it was beginning to get colder. The god awful music had finally stopped echoing over the hills, and we decided to pack up our things and head back to Pittsburgh, I had to drive because Will and Sam were both still tripping well into the night. We got about 10 miles and stopped to look out over a vast expanse of wildflowers. West Virginia is god damned beautiful.
Moonrocks Come From Outer Space
Date: September 21, 2013
Time: 9:00PM - 3:00AM
Drug: MDMA
Dose: ~100mg, insufflated
Still unable to smoke pot due to the impending drug test that seems to never actually come, I found myself on a Saturday night with nothing to do but drink. I hated this. Dustin had been living with me in my tiny one bedroom apartment for about a month as he looked for an apartment of his own, and he had befriended a group of people through his job that were coming over to go on a bar crawl with us. I'm not a bar guy - I don't really get the whole bar thing, but one of the people coming was an attractive, interesting girl who I had never met so I figured it was worth doing just to get to know her better. Turns out she was a pretty cool person, with a penchant for Gucci Mane and being awesome - 2 things I also enjoy. In any event, I had downed a Mad Dog and 3 shots of rum and I was definitely feeling that 20/20 vision. I still felt like something was missing, and the idea got in my head that maybe I should snort some MDMA. I had never done MDMA, and honestly I was kind of afraid of it. Stimulation hadn't been mixing well with me lately. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I felt oddly unphased as I weighed out about 80mg and chopped them up into 2 neat little lines. Without a second thought I had snorted one of them. I weighed out 100mg and Alex (the girl) split it with Jake, one of the other people I had just met. Good first impressions. Shortly thereafter I finished the second line.
A little background - I had been saving this molly for a special occasion. This was not that at all. The product itself was roughly 86% purity (or so it was said) tannish crystals, standard dutch moonrocks direct from the netherest of lands. Highly praised by those I had shared it with in the past.
Within 10 minutes or so I began to notice that I felt moderately incredible. I was dancing and laughing and socializing like a champion, and we hadn't even left my apartment. The first thing I noticed was that I felt far from overstimulated. In fact, I felt incredibly peaceful. I did have energy, but it felt smoother than even caffeine. I simply felt serene and euphoric. I texted Kyle that I had just done MDMA for the first time, and within 15 minutes he was in my living room railing his own 100mg dose of his own canadian brown sugar. Things like this are why I love Kyle like a brother.
By the time we arrived at the bar the effects were undeniable. This was a gay bar that I had only been at once previously, and I ran into several gay associates. I hugged everybody in sight, and enjoyed the texture of their clothes with my fingertips. Sam and Will were there, and I expressed how much closer to them I had felt after our acid experience the pervious weekend. We all hugged and I remarked that Sam's jacket felt like dick skin. "It is dick skin", she replied. We socialized at this bar for a while, and I got to know the new friends. I felt strangely disinterested in sex, despite that being the initial motivation of the excursion for me. I knew that sex would probably feel amazing in my state, but it was honestly one of the last things on my mind. I was having too good of a time to care about things like that.
We decided to move on to Belvedere's, but I had to stop off in Polish Hill because I left a little over a zip of some kill at a friend's house. Yeah, I speak the slanguage. Before that we stopped off at my place and Kyle and I both railed about 30 more mg of molly each. We showed up at our friends' house and hung out for a while. I hugged everyone of course, and told them how much I loved them. I was assaulted from behind with a head massaging device that nearly sent me barreling into orgasm. As I laid on Alfred's bed I felt more content than I possibly ever had in my life. I remarked that I wanted to have sex, but that I didn't think I was physically capable at this point. Shortly after that we left for the next bar.
It was 90's night. DJ Thermos was spinning, and I had often listened to his local college radio show so I was pretty excited about this. I had never been to this bar, but it was pretty excellent. I grabbed a beer, rolled a cigarette, and headed for the dance floor where I realized why this drug was often paired with dancing. It felt amazing to move, but not compulsory as it had felt on 2C-I. I was interested in talking to all the people around me, but the loud music made this difficult. After not too long we left here and headed to Kyle's house, where I eventually fell asleep on the couch somewhere around 4am.
The Cuddle Puddle and The Nexus Flip
Date: September 28, 2013
Time: 12:00PM - 3:00AM
Drug: 2C-C Hcl, Lorazepam, Codeine, 2C-B Hbr, MDMA
Dose: 10MG (2C-C, insufflated)
0.5mg (Lorazepam, chewed)
20mg (Codeine, oral)
5MG (2C-B, insufflated)
50mg (MDMA, insufflated)
I woke up hungover as shit. After helping a friend move I had quickly devoured 5 or 6 beers and ciders while gawking at a beautiful view of the city from his new place on the top of a hill in the northside. From there I ventured onward to sip some codeine sizzurp with Kyle, and somewhere along the way I also acquired a Vicodin. More alcohol, more opiates, passed out somewhere around 2 or 3. By some accounts I was getting a little wild lately. By other accounts I was "back".
As you can imagine, when I awoke the morning of the day in question I was not really in any shape to be taking mescaline as I had planned. Kyle came over and we discussed the options. There was a Native American Pow-wow we were planning on attending, as well as a pepper roasting festival. I had been thinking about trying 2C-C, and after reading about it online Kyle was enthusiastic about this option. This batch had never been tasted by anyone we knew, having been acquired about 2 years ago from the usual pathways before 2C-C had become scheduled. We decided to first snort a 5mg safety dose - just to make sure it wasn't 2C-E or something weird.
We weighed out 10mg and cut it into 2 small bumps. This was very fluffy stuff, so it looked like quite a bit more than it was. Kyle railed his first, and about 10 minutes later I imbibed mine. Somewhere around this time Jamie showed up. The pain was honestly less than I had expected given the horror stories of snorted 2C-X's that everybody seems to tell. It didn't feel great, obviously. I put on some music, and in almost immediately I felt a strange relaxation wash over me. After about 5 or 10 minutes this had developed into an undeniably stoned state, with a tinge of the balloon mindstate that I was familiar with from 2C-B. Very odd - not quite like anything I had previously experienced, although reminiscent of mushrooms in some ways. Kyle decided he would like to stack 35mg oral on top of his dose, whereas I decided to snort 5 more mg and see where that took me. Kyle weighed out a capsule to take once we had driven safely to the pow-wow, and Jamie joined me with a 10mg dose snorted. After I had finished my last bump, we got in Kyle's car and headed towards the suburbs. I was already quite inebriated leaving the apartment, and by the time we had gotten through 4 or 5 blocks of traffic I was feeling quite frenzied. In an act of self preservation I requested that we go to Kyle's (which was nearby) so that I could lay down and deal with the come-up temporarily. Jamie remarked that he was tripping quite hard as well. We passed a red building filled with red trucks, and this made some kind of profoundly weird impression on me.
We arrived at Kyle's and I layed on the couch. Little did I know I would not leave here for the next hour or so. The body effect was quite profound - I felt alternatively extremely comfortable and extremely uncomfortable. The relaxation was overwhelming - I at times felt like I may fall asleep. I asked if I could spoon Jamie, and so we cuddled for quite a while. Jamie is a good friend of mine, and he has been for many years now. Jamie is a homosexual. For all intents and purposes, I'm a straight man. I have certainly entertained the idea of sexual experiences with other men, and in fact I would very much like to experience that some day. That being said I could never really accept the idea of being in a romatnic relationship with a man, such as I have been with the women I have dated. As I layed there holding Jamie and gently caressing his arms and torso, I realized that it had been 4 months since I had held another human being like this. The tactile sensations were amazing - perhaps the best of any of the 2C's I have tried. I felt extremely content just laying there. I began to imagine what sexual contact might be like with Jamie, and through the imagination of the drug I was able to visualize this and feel it quite strongly. I won't go into graphic detail, but it was quite beautiful. I began to work up the courage to suggest that we enact some of these things, but before I could propose this Jamie and Kyle left the room to smoke a cigarette. I attempted to join them, but this is when I discovered the most disturbing aspect of this experience - the rapid change in blood pressure from standing caused my limbs to go numb. Now, I had been quite numb all over previous to this - but this was like a pins and needles sensation, as if my limbs were asleep. It became very uncomfortable and scary very quickly, so I returned to laying down. Jamie decided to venture to a gas station and retrieve some drinks for us and Kyle (having now dropped his dose) went upstairs to use the bathroom. I took an Ativan around this time because the whole numbness in the limbs thing was really fucking with my head.
I layed there for what seemed like a half hour to an hour by myself, feeling very sexual. I was enacting all kinds of erotic scenes in my extraordinarily vivid mind's eye. Eventually Kyle returned, and I was told this time period had only been about 10 minutes. Time dilation was very strong on 2C-C. Visuals were very similar to 2C-B, nearly identical really. Mentally I was pretty centered, nothing too deeply insightful or frantically brilliant going on. Jamie returned with some Tea and Gatorade, and I was able to sit up at this point. I noticed that the effects were diminishing but I was not sure whether or not I should expect waves. Jamie was pretty convinced that we were coming down. After about 10 minutes (I think), I was able to get up and walk to the bathroom to have a piss. No tingling extremities, thankfully. It became very evident over the next 15 or 20 minutes that we were in fact coming down, just as Kyle was coming up on his oral dose. We sat outside and smoked cigarettes, remarking on our surroundings. Shortly after this we poured some codeine syrup into our drinks and discussed the rest of the evening. Kyle and I decided to go see Sam and Will for a few drinks and then relax at home with a movie. Jamie decided to head home and get some sleep before hitting bars. We both remarked on how the entire experience had come in under 2 hours, which even though we had snorted it was not what either of us had expected.
As Kyle was feeling the effects of his 2C-C dose, I piloted his car to Sam and Will's where we spent about an hour and each drank 3 mixed drinks. Feeling tired, we decided to head back to my place and watch a movie around this time. We probably watched a half hour of the documentary we chose before I remembered that Scott was having a party that night. After talking this over briefly we decided to go, but the idea was also kicked around that we should continue tripping. Largely, I was looking to repeat Kyle and myself's previous adventure on LSD followed by 2C-B, which had gone down as one of for the history books and was a pinnacle moment in our friendship. I hadn't taken drugs with Kyle like I had been these past few weeks in over a year, and he was soon going to Philadelphia for a month so why not enjoy ourselves?
I suggested that we snort 5 to 10mg of 2C-B, I was interested in how this would compare to the 2C-C we had snorted. After a few minutes of contemplation, Kyle suggested MDMA instead. I suggested that we compromise, so we racked up lines containing 5mg of 2C-B and 50mg of MDMA each. The second I finished my line I began pacing. I quickly threw a jacket and the bottle of Ativan in my backpack and suggested we start walking immediately. For some reason this was very important to me at the time. The come-up was very wobbly and very speedy for about 5 minutes, so walking helped to burn off some of that energy. By the time we had gotten about 5 or 6 blocks, I was feeling truly splendiforous. The MDMA was just as I had remembered it, and the 2C-B was adding this extra dimension of sparkle and light to the whole thing. No extremely vivid visuals or patterns, but everything was just popping. On our way to the party we stopped to use the bathroom at the Cathedral of Learning and I remember feeling like I was about to step into a championship boxing match. The confidence was just oozing from Kyle and myself as we looked ourselves over in the large gothic mirrors and adjusted various bits of our persons. Our next stop was to grab a six pack of beer, and on the way we made conversation with several groups of people. In front of the cathedral we chatted up a group of hula hoop girls who were discussing the formation of a hula hoop club. As we passed Jamie's old apartment where I had spent many a day, we decided to stop off and revisit "the Sinister", an ever-present and particularly gruesome puddle of what we generally thought to be moldy dirt and cooking grease. As we entered the courtyard we saw a large crane towering over a section of the buildings that had apparently been demolished.
"Yo, what the fuck happened here? Since when is this like this?" I yelled to 2 guys standing on one of the balconies.
"I dunno, son, I didn't do it. Ya'll got any loud? Wanna smoke?"
"Nah man I have a drug test next week, that's why I'm on Molly instead."
"You got Molly?"
"Not on us..." remarked Kyle.
"Popped a Molly I'm sweatin... HOO!" Yelled one of the balcony guys. We both mimiced the currently popular arm motions associated with this phrase.
"Aight, peace." Kyle and I began walking away from the courtyard and towards the beer. We came across a group of young-ish looking college students.
"Ya'll should try ecstasy if you haven't yet!" I was pretty much out of control at this point. Partying in this neighborhood was bringing back a lot of memories.
We grabbed a six pack and finally arrived at the party. Out back there was a bonfire, and live music, and way more people than I was expecting. Excellent. Kyle and I moved to the bon-fire and began chatting people up. I was working my way around the circle, literally introducing myself to everybody as if this were some kind of ice-breaking excercise when a disturbance broke out. Everybody in the party watched as people tried to restrain someone who had apparently been randomly punched by someone he had previously angered, and was trying to get together a party of people to go exact his vengeance. Weirdly enough, one of the hula hoop girls from earlier was somehow involved in all of this. As the commotion left the backyard and spilled out onto the street, I turned to the three girls I had just introduced myself to. "Watch this... Johanna, Kristen, Kaitlyn! Boom!" I was applauded for remembering their names given the distraction.
I began talking to a guy who I had met 2 years ago at a different party. I had remembered him as one of the strangest characters I had met while partying my way through college - a nearly blackout drunk 6 foot something big bearded motherfucker who had dropped out of seminary. I asked him what he was up to these days and he told me that he was working at a restaurant in Greenfield. I love cooking, to a degree that someday I want to leave my career as a computer programmer behind to pursue it professionally. Naturally I began talking to him in depth about this. I asked him what his favorite dish to cook was and he seemed a little bit confused.
"Put it this way - If you wanted me to know something about you and you wanted to communicate that through food, what would you cook for me? What is your signature dish that you feel embodies your creative output through food?"
"Probably Percocet nachos."
This was maybe the funniest thing I had heard in five years. I later confirmed that this wasn't some witty retort, the dude was known by many people for making a mean plate of Percocet nachos.
I moved inside. Some guys were talking about a time where they almost had to kill "Money Mike" because he threw one of them off a balcony onto a car. The hula hoop girl was there, talking about how she did not think she looked like a slut despite some contrary claims by some dudes involved in the fight earlier. I reassured her she did not look like a slut, despite contrary claims by my dick. Around this time a Master P looking motherfucker walked onto the scene, and hula hoop girl asked him if everything was alright. "No, everything is most definitely not alright. But you know, it's gonna get taken care of." I found most of this extremely entertaining, and not at all unsettling. There was a woman there old enough to be my grandmother.
"I tried living in California 5 times, I just can't do it", she said.
"Yeah dude, you know what the problem with California is? Everybody there is too happy." I replied. "Everybody is smiling, everybody is healthy, everybody has a hobby and they do outdoorsy shit and they eat well. Colorado was like that too. I can't stand that shit, I need a city with some strife in it. That's what the east coast has that you can't really get anywhere else in the US, except maybe Chicago."
Scott chimed in. "A friend once told me that the best way to make friends when I was in California was to constantly express how excited I was to be in California. He was right, they ate that shit up."
I hugged the old woman.
Kyle was busy talking up some chickens, which made me happy because that's not usually his game. Eventually DJ Joey G showed up, which made 3 Joes at the party. Now I don't see this guy a lot but I hold him in very high esteem, being one of the nicest people I have ever met and also being a walking, talking embodiment of Pittsburgh itself. I began trying to explain to him what I was feeling because although he smokes a blunt literally every day of his life, he had never partaken of any psychedelic drugs. Kyle probably put it best - there are lots of people who very clearly aren't cut out for stuff like LSD. You can pretty much tell that they aren't going to enjoy it from the get-go. Those people don't exist for MDMA, it's pretty much universally amazing in such a way that I can't imagine anybody not enjoying it immenseley. This is of course assuming you are dealing with actual MDMA, which seems to be getting harder and harder to come by these days. Recent DEA analysis of 2012 "Molly" seizures found only about 13% of them containing any MDMA at all. Pretty scary shit.
There isn't much more to say about the party. In general it just went awesomely, and afterwards we both went to sleep. Monday was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. MDMA needs space.
Thanks for reading folks, feels good to be getting back into this stuff. Hope you've all been safe and sound since my last visits here!:D
Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been a little over a year since I last ate acid. I've been asking myself for a while why that might be. There are several factors, both practical and abstract. For one, there were the anxiety issues that I had written about in my most recent LSD report submitted to these archives. Now, I've not really suffered these effects in daily life for some time, but the notion still lingered that playing with my brain chemistry could of course throw me into some kind of panic attack - which are no fun, in case you were wondering. After I wrote that last report, I did attempt 2 further psychedelic ventures. The first was on mescaline, and it was not exactly a smooth journey. You can read about it in my report Lakedown. The second was on 2C-B, and was kind of a disaster that involved gobbling a lot of Ativan in an Aviary. I didn't write that one up.
Beyond that, I've not really felt the need. Psychedelics were at one point a hugely important thing for me, and extremely helpful during some very formative times. But for the most part these days I've been largely... formed. It's been a while since I really had anything I wanted to work out about myself or about the world. I've been working, independent, and generally content smoking my daily dose of good ass weed when I got home. But lately things have been changing. I have become dissatisfied with my career and living situation, and for the first time in about 6 years I'm a single man. I've been putting things in motion to change a lot of this, but it's certainly fair to say that once again I am in uncertain waters and in need of some direction. Enter LSD.
It's also important to note that an impending drug test was keeping me from altering my consciousness in the usual ways. Honestly, it's hard for me to go day to day sober. That's not something I'm ashamed to admit. I love marijuana like a family member, I don't plan on ever parting ways with it, and I see no harm in ingesting it in the evenings ritualistically. But the lack of it had pushed me to do some weird things, like sip sizzurp - a lifelong dream of my inner gangster fulfilled, and my opiate cherry popped in one fell swoop. In short, lately I've been taking weird drugs and doing weird things to keep my sanity. These are some stories about that. I'm sure I'll be posting a few more isolated trip reports over the next several months, this seems to be a time in my life conducive to drug-taking. I've already got a couple other experiences beyond those here that I can't really figure out how to write up.
1 Krishna, 2 Krishna, Red Krishna, Blue Krishna
Date: September 14, 2013
Time: 12:00PM - 6:00PM
Drug: LSD
Dose: 1/2 Tab (Mayan Calendar)
Sam and Will had been bugging me all summer to take acid with them. They had never done it before, although they both had experience with mushrooms and I had smoked DMT with Will a couple of times. Being the resident shaman in this concrete jungle, naturally they came to me. I was apprehensive obviously, given that my previous 2 forays were awfully harrowing experiences. But the last time I did LSD I was fine, and enjoyed myself in fact, so I thought that maybe LSD would be a good decision. Thankfully I was correct. It was September before we had a definitive plan: the festival of colors. It was a celebration of the Hindu holiday Holi taking place at a Hare Krishna temple in West Virginia. During this festival it was custom to liberally throw colored, perfumed chalk powder at anybody and everybody you saw. This seemed like an exceptional opportunity.
A week before on a trip to visit some friends in Astoria, Kyle had eaten one of my Mayan Calendars to diminished effect. Degradation due to being dragged around to various music festivals seemed a likely culprit. This complicated matters. In my possession were a handful of Dalai Lamas and Mayan Calendars, some Alex Greys and some shit I had gotten several years ago on the street that were simply referred to as "reds". Kyle also had some Mayans and Dalais. It was impossible to tell which had degraded and to what extent, although we knew that Kyle's were still regulation strength.
Kyle dropped 1.5 of his Mayans and I ate the larger half of the halved panel, figuring I would take it easy this time. Will, Sam and Meg all started with an Alex Grey. By the time we arrived at the festival, Kyle and I were getting first alerts but everybody else was pretty underwhelmed. Rats. At T+1:00 I gave Will another Grey at his request and we headed into the temple grounds where people were throwing dye and music was being played. This was pretty enjoyable for about a half hour, and I was definitely feeling the 'cid, although at this point I began contemplating a redose. We left this area rather quickly, which was quite a deviation from the plan. The thing about Hare Krishnas, as it turns out, is that they fucking love Krishna. Like way, way too much. The tone of the music was extremely preachy and corny, I felt like I was at a Christian rock festival but everybody had switched out the Jesus references for Krishna and Rama references. Weird vibes, man. Weird vibes.
We returned to a pond near where we entered. The pond had 2 pavillions leading out to the water, and a makeshift ghat. The fact that we were in West Virginia rather than West Varanasi was constantly apparent, and very bizarre. As we watched a lone swan twiddle its toes around the pond, we discussed the fact that nobody was feeling anything besides Kyle and myself. I had brought a 100mg pill of mescaline hydrochloride that I had extracted in case someone felt like mixing a cocktail - Meg decided that she would take this in order to facilitate things. Sam and Will each ate a Dalai Lama, hoping to push the acid into legitimate territory. Due to taking care of them, I did not redose at this point.
We wandered over to a large chitzy fibreglass Radha Krishna - which is essentially two statues representing the unity of the Masculine and Feminine aspects of God. I was feeling very serene and contemplative, Kyle and I talked for a while by ourselves about friendship and how important it was to have a supportive group of people to trust and fall back on. Around this time Will began to trip extremely hard. I guess those Alex Greys weren't totally duds, because he disappeard for a while, and reappeared claiming that he had mistook the plastic chairs on the ghat in the distance for sheep, and that he had spent some time by himself trying to figure out why a shepherd had shown up. He had also talked to the swan. He had the most ridiculous grin plastered on his face, and I knew at that point that I had not failed in my mission to usher Sam and Will into the world of LSD.
We wandered up a hill to a secluded area and everybody but Will smoked some Girl Scout Cookies. I hadn't smoked pot in about a week and a half in preparation for a drug test, but I needed to kick things into high gear and I still had about 2 weeks until the test. At this point my trip ramped up to something worthwhile. It hit Sam here too. We descended from the hill and I began walking among peacocks. I tried to mimic them as best I could, to walk like them and think like them so that we may communicate on some level. This was a family event, and at this point we were very obviously on drugs. I was strutting around the peacock enclosure and everybody was taking turns comparing realities with and without sunglasses. I had hit that point where I was comfortable being myself and projecting my true identity to strangers. I'm the guy who walks with the peacocks, and I didn't care who knew.
We smoked cigarettes and sprawled out on the ghat. Some kids were nearby, and their parents were trying to usher them away from us. I guess we looked dangeorus. "Come on Joe, it's time to go!" I looked up and Joe was staring at me. "Is your name Joe?" I asked. He stared at me, unbliking and nodded. "My name is Joe, too", I said. He didn't seem to know how to respond, and he just kind of stared at me with a look of confusion and almost disgust. I had a really weird moment where I imagined that he would remember that moment, and perhaps someday become me. Will, sensing the negative perception the parents had of us, began to feel uncomfortable. He announced that he was overwhelmed, and we began to make our way back towards the woods in order to handle the situation. During the walk there he expressed a lot of paranoia about all the people around us and how they were perceiving us, and Kyle and I tried to comfort him by assuring him that people often hit rough patches on acid, but that it would pass shortly. When we reached the hill, Will request a Lorazepam and we simply laid there for a bit while he got his bearings. He thought that there were people around us in the woods, watching and listening. He also kept thinking there were 6 of us in the group, despite there only being five of us. After he asked this several times, Sam finally convinced him by pointing out that only 5 people could fit in her car. Eventually he recovered from this, and we began to talk very candidly about his parents' recent divorce, and several other things that he normally would not be so open about. Due largely to the time we spent on this hill, I am now a much closer friend with both Will and Sam. I could definitely see him figuring some things out that put us on a similar plane of perspective where we had previously not really overlapped, even after the experience.
We eventually left the hill as the sun was setting and it was beginning to get colder. The god awful music had finally stopped echoing over the hills, and we decided to pack up our things and head back to Pittsburgh, I had to drive because Will and Sam were both still tripping well into the night. We got about 10 miles and stopped to look out over a vast expanse of wildflowers. West Virginia is god damned beautiful.
Moonrocks Come From Outer Space
Date: September 21, 2013
Time: 9:00PM - 3:00AM
Drug: MDMA
Dose: ~100mg, insufflated
Still unable to smoke pot due to the impending drug test that seems to never actually come, I found myself on a Saturday night with nothing to do but drink. I hated this. Dustin had been living with me in my tiny one bedroom apartment for about a month as he looked for an apartment of his own, and he had befriended a group of people through his job that were coming over to go on a bar crawl with us. I'm not a bar guy - I don't really get the whole bar thing, but one of the people coming was an attractive, interesting girl who I had never met so I figured it was worth doing just to get to know her better. Turns out she was a pretty cool person, with a penchant for Gucci Mane and being awesome - 2 things I also enjoy. In any event, I had downed a Mad Dog and 3 shots of rum and I was definitely feeling that 20/20 vision. I still felt like something was missing, and the idea got in my head that maybe I should snort some MDMA. I had never done MDMA, and honestly I was kind of afraid of it. Stimulation hadn't been mixing well with me lately. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I felt oddly unphased as I weighed out about 80mg and chopped them up into 2 neat little lines. Without a second thought I had snorted one of them. I weighed out 100mg and Alex (the girl) split it with Jake, one of the other people I had just met. Good first impressions. Shortly thereafter I finished the second line.
A little background - I had been saving this molly for a special occasion. This was not that at all. The product itself was roughly 86% purity (or so it was said) tannish crystals, standard dutch moonrocks direct from the netherest of lands. Highly praised by those I had shared it with in the past.
Within 10 minutes or so I began to notice that I felt moderately incredible. I was dancing and laughing and socializing like a champion, and we hadn't even left my apartment. The first thing I noticed was that I felt far from overstimulated. In fact, I felt incredibly peaceful. I did have energy, but it felt smoother than even caffeine. I simply felt serene and euphoric. I texted Kyle that I had just done MDMA for the first time, and within 15 minutes he was in my living room railing his own 100mg dose of his own canadian brown sugar. Things like this are why I love Kyle like a brother.
By the time we arrived at the bar the effects were undeniable. This was a gay bar that I had only been at once previously, and I ran into several gay associates. I hugged everybody in sight, and enjoyed the texture of their clothes with my fingertips. Sam and Will were there, and I expressed how much closer to them I had felt after our acid experience the pervious weekend. We all hugged and I remarked that Sam's jacket felt like dick skin. "It is dick skin", she replied. We socialized at this bar for a while, and I got to know the new friends. I felt strangely disinterested in sex, despite that being the initial motivation of the excursion for me. I knew that sex would probably feel amazing in my state, but it was honestly one of the last things on my mind. I was having too good of a time to care about things like that.
We decided to move on to Belvedere's, but I had to stop off in Polish Hill because I left a little over a zip of some kill at a friend's house. Yeah, I speak the slanguage. Before that we stopped off at my place and Kyle and I both railed about 30 more mg of molly each. We showed up at our friends' house and hung out for a while. I hugged everyone of course, and told them how much I loved them. I was assaulted from behind with a head massaging device that nearly sent me barreling into orgasm. As I laid on Alfred's bed I felt more content than I possibly ever had in my life. I remarked that I wanted to have sex, but that I didn't think I was physically capable at this point. Shortly after that we left for the next bar.
It was 90's night. DJ Thermos was spinning, and I had often listened to his local college radio show so I was pretty excited about this. I had never been to this bar, but it was pretty excellent. I grabbed a beer, rolled a cigarette, and headed for the dance floor where I realized why this drug was often paired with dancing. It felt amazing to move, but not compulsory as it had felt on 2C-I. I was interested in talking to all the people around me, but the loud music made this difficult. After not too long we left here and headed to Kyle's house, where I eventually fell asleep on the couch somewhere around 4am.
The Cuddle Puddle and The Nexus Flip
Date: September 28, 2013
Time: 12:00PM - 3:00AM
Drug: 2C-C Hcl, Lorazepam, Codeine, 2C-B Hbr, MDMA
Dose: 10MG (2C-C, insufflated)
0.5mg (Lorazepam, chewed)
20mg (Codeine, oral)
5MG (2C-B, insufflated)
50mg (MDMA, insufflated)
I woke up hungover as shit. After helping a friend move I had quickly devoured 5 or 6 beers and ciders while gawking at a beautiful view of the city from his new place on the top of a hill in the northside. From there I ventured onward to sip some codeine sizzurp with Kyle, and somewhere along the way I also acquired a Vicodin. More alcohol, more opiates, passed out somewhere around 2 or 3. By some accounts I was getting a little wild lately. By other accounts I was "back".
As you can imagine, when I awoke the morning of the day in question I was not really in any shape to be taking mescaline as I had planned. Kyle came over and we discussed the options. There was a Native American Pow-wow we were planning on attending, as well as a pepper roasting festival. I had been thinking about trying 2C-C, and after reading about it online Kyle was enthusiastic about this option. This batch had never been tasted by anyone we knew, having been acquired about 2 years ago from the usual pathways before 2C-C had become scheduled. We decided to first snort a 5mg safety dose - just to make sure it wasn't 2C-E or something weird.
We weighed out 10mg and cut it into 2 small bumps. This was very fluffy stuff, so it looked like quite a bit more than it was. Kyle railed his first, and about 10 minutes later I imbibed mine. Somewhere around this time Jamie showed up. The pain was honestly less than I had expected given the horror stories of snorted 2C-X's that everybody seems to tell. It didn't feel great, obviously. I put on some music, and in almost immediately I felt a strange relaxation wash over me. After about 5 or 10 minutes this had developed into an undeniably stoned state, with a tinge of the balloon mindstate that I was familiar with from 2C-B. Very odd - not quite like anything I had previously experienced, although reminiscent of mushrooms in some ways. Kyle decided he would like to stack 35mg oral on top of his dose, whereas I decided to snort 5 more mg and see where that took me. Kyle weighed out a capsule to take once we had driven safely to the pow-wow, and Jamie joined me with a 10mg dose snorted. After I had finished my last bump, we got in Kyle's car and headed towards the suburbs. I was already quite inebriated leaving the apartment, and by the time we had gotten through 4 or 5 blocks of traffic I was feeling quite frenzied. In an act of self preservation I requested that we go to Kyle's (which was nearby) so that I could lay down and deal with the come-up temporarily. Jamie remarked that he was tripping quite hard as well. We passed a red building filled with red trucks, and this made some kind of profoundly weird impression on me.
We arrived at Kyle's and I layed on the couch. Little did I know I would not leave here for the next hour or so. The body effect was quite profound - I felt alternatively extremely comfortable and extremely uncomfortable. The relaxation was overwhelming - I at times felt like I may fall asleep. I asked if I could spoon Jamie, and so we cuddled for quite a while. Jamie is a good friend of mine, and he has been for many years now. Jamie is a homosexual. For all intents and purposes, I'm a straight man. I have certainly entertained the idea of sexual experiences with other men, and in fact I would very much like to experience that some day. That being said I could never really accept the idea of being in a romatnic relationship with a man, such as I have been with the women I have dated. As I layed there holding Jamie and gently caressing his arms and torso, I realized that it had been 4 months since I had held another human being like this. The tactile sensations were amazing - perhaps the best of any of the 2C's I have tried. I felt extremely content just laying there. I began to imagine what sexual contact might be like with Jamie, and through the imagination of the drug I was able to visualize this and feel it quite strongly. I won't go into graphic detail, but it was quite beautiful. I began to work up the courage to suggest that we enact some of these things, but before I could propose this Jamie and Kyle left the room to smoke a cigarette. I attempted to join them, but this is when I discovered the most disturbing aspect of this experience - the rapid change in blood pressure from standing caused my limbs to go numb. Now, I had been quite numb all over previous to this - but this was like a pins and needles sensation, as if my limbs were asleep. It became very uncomfortable and scary very quickly, so I returned to laying down. Jamie decided to venture to a gas station and retrieve some drinks for us and Kyle (having now dropped his dose) went upstairs to use the bathroom. I took an Ativan around this time because the whole numbness in the limbs thing was really fucking with my head.
I layed there for what seemed like a half hour to an hour by myself, feeling very sexual. I was enacting all kinds of erotic scenes in my extraordinarily vivid mind's eye. Eventually Kyle returned, and I was told this time period had only been about 10 minutes. Time dilation was very strong on 2C-C. Visuals were very similar to 2C-B, nearly identical really. Mentally I was pretty centered, nothing too deeply insightful or frantically brilliant going on. Jamie returned with some Tea and Gatorade, and I was able to sit up at this point. I noticed that the effects were diminishing but I was not sure whether or not I should expect waves. Jamie was pretty convinced that we were coming down. After about 10 minutes (I think), I was able to get up and walk to the bathroom to have a piss. No tingling extremities, thankfully. It became very evident over the next 15 or 20 minutes that we were in fact coming down, just as Kyle was coming up on his oral dose. We sat outside and smoked cigarettes, remarking on our surroundings. Shortly after this we poured some codeine syrup into our drinks and discussed the rest of the evening. Kyle and I decided to go see Sam and Will for a few drinks and then relax at home with a movie. Jamie decided to head home and get some sleep before hitting bars. We both remarked on how the entire experience had come in under 2 hours, which even though we had snorted it was not what either of us had expected.
As Kyle was feeling the effects of his 2C-C dose, I piloted his car to Sam and Will's where we spent about an hour and each drank 3 mixed drinks. Feeling tired, we decided to head back to my place and watch a movie around this time. We probably watched a half hour of the documentary we chose before I remembered that Scott was having a party that night. After talking this over briefly we decided to go, but the idea was also kicked around that we should continue tripping. Largely, I was looking to repeat Kyle and myself's previous adventure on LSD followed by 2C-B, which had gone down as one of for the history books and was a pinnacle moment in our friendship. I hadn't taken drugs with Kyle like I had been these past few weeks in over a year, and he was soon going to Philadelphia for a month so why not enjoy ourselves?
I suggested that we snort 5 to 10mg of 2C-B, I was interested in how this would compare to the 2C-C we had snorted. After a few minutes of contemplation, Kyle suggested MDMA instead. I suggested that we compromise, so we racked up lines containing 5mg of 2C-B and 50mg of MDMA each. The second I finished my line I began pacing. I quickly threw a jacket and the bottle of Ativan in my backpack and suggested we start walking immediately. For some reason this was very important to me at the time. The come-up was very wobbly and very speedy for about 5 minutes, so walking helped to burn off some of that energy. By the time we had gotten about 5 or 6 blocks, I was feeling truly splendiforous. The MDMA was just as I had remembered it, and the 2C-B was adding this extra dimension of sparkle and light to the whole thing. No extremely vivid visuals or patterns, but everything was just popping. On our way to the party we stopped to use the bathroom at the Cathedral of Learning and I remember feeling like I was about to step into a championship boxing match. The confidence was just oozing from Kyle and myself as we looked ourselves over in the large gothic mirrors and adjusted various bits of our persons. Our next stop was to grab a six pack of beer, and on the way we made conversation with several groups of people. In front of the cathedral we chatted up a group of hula hoop girls who were discussing the formation of a hula hoop club. As we passed Jamie's old apartment where I had spent many a day, we decided to stop off and revisit "the Sinister", an ever-present and particularly gruesome puddle of what we generally thought to be moldy dirt and cooking grease. As we entered the courtyard we saw a large crane towering over a section of the buildings that had apparently been demolished.
"Yo, what the fuck happened here? Since when is this like this?" I yelled to 2 guys standing on one of the balconies.
"I dunno, son, I didn't do it. Ya'll got any loud? Wanna smoke?"
"Nah man I have a drug test next week, that's why I'm on Molly instead."
"You got Molly?"
"Not on us..." remarked Kyle.
"Popped a Molly I'm sweatin... HOO!" Yelled one of the balcony guys. We both mimiced the currently popular arm motions associated with this phrase.
"Aight, peace." Kyle and I began walking away from the courtyard and towards the beer. We came across a group of young-ish looking college students.
"Ya'll should try ecstasy if you haven't yet!" I was pretty much out of control at this point. Partying in this neighborhood was bringing back a lot of memories.
We grabbed a six pack and finally arrived at the party. Out back there was a bonfire, and live music, and way more people than I was expecting. Excellent. Kyle and I moved to the bon-fire and began chatting people up. I was working my way around the circle, literally introducing myself to everybody as if this were some kind of ice-breaking excercise when a disturbance broke out. Everybody in the party watched as people tried to restrain someone who had apparently been randomly punched by someone he had previously angered, and was trying to get together a party of people to go exact his vengeance. Weirdly enough, one of the hula hoop girls from earlier was somehow involved in all of this. As the commotion left the backyard and spilled out onto the street, I turned to the three girls I had just introduced myself to. "Watch this... Johanna, Kristen, Kaitlyn! Boom!" I was applauded for remembering their names given the distraction.
I began talking to a guy who I had met 2 years ago at a different party. I had remembered him as one of the strangest characters I had met while partying my way through college - a nearly blackout drunk 6 foot something big bearded motherfucker who had dropped out of seminary. I asked him what he was up to these days and he told me that he was working at a restaurant in Greenfield. I love cooking, to a degree that someday I want to leave my career as a computer programmer behind to pursue it professionally. Naturally I began talking to him in depth about this. I asked him what his favorite dish to cook was and he seemed a little bit confused.
"Put it this way - If you wanted me to know something about you and you wanted to communicate that through food, what would you cook for me? What is your signature dish that you feel embodies your creative output through food?"
"Probably Percocet nachos."
This was maybe the funniest thing I had heard in five years. I later confirmed that this wasn't some witty retort, the dude was known by many people for making a mean plate of Percocet nachos.
I moved inside. Some guys were talking about a time where they almost had to kill "Money Mike" because he threw one of them off a balcony onto a car. The hula hoop girl was there, talking about how she did not think she looked like a slut despite some contrary claims by some dudes involved in the fight earlier. I reassured her she did not look like a slut, despite contrary claims by my dick. Around this time a Master P looking motherfucker walked onto the scene, and hula hoop girl asked him if everything was alright. "No, everything is most definitely not alright. But you know, it's gonna get taken care of." I found most of this extremely entertaining, and not at all unsettling. There was a woman there old enough to be my grandmother.
"I tried living in California 5 times, I just can't do it", she said.
"Yeah dude, you know what the problem with California is? Everybody there is too happy." I replied. "Everybody is smiling, everybody is healthy, everybody has a hobby and they do outdoorsy shit and they eat well. Colorado was like that too. I can't stand that shit, I need a city with some strife in it. That's what the east coast has that you can't really get anywhere else in the US, except maybe Chicago."
Scott chimed in. "A friend once told me that the best way to make friends when I was in California was to constantly express how excited I was to be in California. He was right, they ate that shit up."
I hugged the old woman.
Kyle was busy talking up some chickens, which made me happy because that's not usually his game. Eventually DJ Joey G showed up, which made 3 Joes at the party. Now I don't see this guy a lot but I hold him in very high esteem, being one of the nicest people I have ever met and also being a walking, talking embodiment of Pittsburgh itself. I began trying to explain to him what I was feeling because although he smokes a blunt literally every day of his life, he had never partaken of any psychedelic drugs. Kyle probably put it best - there are lots of people who very clearly aren't cut out for stuff like LSD. You can pretty much tell that they aren't going to enjoy it from the get-go. Those people don't exist for MDMA, it's pretty much universally amazing in such a way that I can't imagine anybody not enjoying it immenseley. This is of course assuming you are dealing with actual MDMA, which seems to be getting harder and harder to come by these days. Recent DEA analysis of 2012 "Molly" seizures found only about 13% of them containing any MDMA at all. Pretty scary shit.
There isn't much more to say about the party. In general it just went awesomely, and afterwards we both went to sleep. Monday was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. MDMA needs space.
Thanks for reading folks, feels good to be getting back into this stuff. Hope you've all been safe and sound since my last visits here!:D